e asked sharply.

"Nay, how could I ask him that?" said Jenny.

"Where does he live?" said Mrs. Quiggin.

"Or that either?" said Jenny.

Mrs. Quiggin's eyes wandered slowly back to the window. "We've all got
our troubles, Jenny," she said quietly.

"All," said Jenny. "I wonder if I shall ever see him again."

"Tell me if you do, Jenny?" said Mrs. Quiggin.

"I will, Nelly," said Jenny.

"Poor fellow, poor fellow," said Mrs. Quiggin.

As Jenny rose to remove her bonnet she shot a sly glance out of the
corners of her eyes, and saw that Mrs. Quiggin was furtively wiping her
own.

Meanwhile Lovibond at Fort Ann was telling a similar story to Captain
Davy. He had left the house for a walk before Davy had come down to
breakfast, and on returning at noon he found him immersed in the usual
occupation of his mornings. This was that of reading and replying to his
correspondence. Davy read with difficulty, and replied to all letters
by check. His method of business was peculiar and original. He was
stretched on the sofa with a pipe in his mouth, and the morning's
letters pigeonholed between his legs. Willie Quarrie sat at a table
with a check-book before him. While Davy read the letters one by one he
instructed Willie as to the nature of the answer, and Willie, with his
head aslant, his mouth awry, and his tongue in his cheek, turned it into
figures on the check-book.

As Lovibond came in Davy was knocking off the last batch for the day.
"'Respected sir,' he was reading, 'I know you've a tender heart'...
Send her five pounds, Willie, and tell her to take that talk to the
butchers."

"'Honored Captain, we are going to erect a new school in connection
with Ballajora chapel, and if you will honor us by laying the foundation
stone....' Never laid a stone in my life 'cept one, and that was my
mawther's sink-stone. Twenty pounds, Willie. 'Sir, we are to hold a
bazaar, and if you will consent to open it....' Bazaar! I know: a
sort of ould clothes shop in a chapel where you're never tooken up for
cheating, because you always says your paternoster-ings afore you begin.
Ten pounds, Willie. Helloa, here's Parson Quiggin. Wish the ould devil
would write more simpler; I was never no good at the big spells myself.
'Dear David....' That's good--he walloped me out of the school once for
mimicking his walk--same as a coakatoo esactly. 'Dear David, owing to
the lamentable death of brother Mylechreest it has been resolved to
ask you t